QUILL Don t forget Motor season was over October 1st 2014 Board Election Results

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1 The Prospectors November 2013 issue QUILL Don t forget Motor season was over October 1 st 2014 Board Election Results At the October 9 th general membership meeting, elections were held to determine board members for the 2014 season. With 1-Year Trustee Dick Margeson presiding, ballots were cast for President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, 3-Year Trustee, and 2 Year Trustee. After speeches by the nominees and a sometimes-spirited discussion by the membership, the following members were elected: President Ben Higley Vice President George Enterman Secretary Tricia Enterman Treasurer Wayne Wittkopp 3 yr trustee Mike Hammond 2 yr trustee Jason Allen SILENT AUCTION At November 13 General Membership Meeting If you re looking for a great deal on mining and/or prospecting equipment, mark your calendar for November 15 th! That s when GPOC is holding a silent auction for mining equipment and related items at our General Membership meeting. Bring your checkbook and any items you d like to sell or donate to the club. 1 yr trustee Dick Margenson

2 Mark Your Calendars! Annual Christmas Potluck December 11 th GPOC will hold our annual Christmas Potluck on December 11 th in lieu of our monthly Membership Meeting. The club will buy the meats, so all you need to bring is a side dish or dessert (or both, or an extra dessert or two) to share. Although the club is buying the meats, we are looking for people to cook one of the hams, turkeys, or briskets at home and then bring it to the party. I ve been told there will be yeller gold given out in some way shape or form, and, most important of all: the secret location of the new claims will be revealed! We also encourage everyone to bring an appropriate gift for the Marine Corps Toys for Tots program to provide some Christmas cheer for those less fortunate (see below for details). So bring your family/guests and come with a hearty appetite and enjoy a good time with your fellow gold seekers as we celebrate the Holiday Season and the end of another year of prospecting. Toys for Tots Each year at the GPOC annual Christmas Party we request that members bring an unwrapped gift for the Marines Toys for Tots program. What ages are served. Most campaign sites are able to assist children up to age 12, but in many local communities, local support is such that the age limit may be extended to Preteen/teens are groups for which shopping is especially difficult. Do you have any ideas? The F o u n d a t i o n does p u r c h a s e supplemental toys/gifts for our campaign sites and focuses on these age groups. In the past, items purchased for these groups have included, but are not limited to: sporting equipment/bags/balls; books, backpacks, cosmetics, purses, watch/wallet gift sets, bath gift sets, board games, radio control cars/trucks, hand-held electronics, skateboards/helmets, curling irons, hair straighteners, and hair dryers. This is a group that is often left out. Are there toys/gifts that are not accepted/distributed? Toys for Tots prefers not to accept realistic looking weapons and gifts with food. If donated, such items will NOT be distributed. Is there a list of toys available to guide me with my donation? Toys for Tots does not publish a list of appropriate toys to donate. If such a list were created, most would follow it, resulting in a limited selection of items to distribute in each community. We would rather our donors consider what might be an appropriate gift for their own child/ relative, purchase the item, and donate to Toys for Tots. Toys For Tots is a Top-Rated Charity Over 97% of your donations goes to our mission of providing toys,books, and other gifts to less fortunate children.

3 Quill Gets New Editor Wow, that looks really weird when I m writing it about myself! By way of introduction, my name is Mark Ressel and I ve been a member of the GPOC for about three years. While I can t claim to be the best writer or the most knowledgeable gold prospector, I hope to share with you my passion for getting out in the great Colorado mountains and searching for that yeller gold. I ask only that you feed me your stories, your pictures, and your items of interest to the club. With your help, I hope to make this the best Quill ever. GPOC in the News GPOC made the network news, if only by accident. At the end of September, Fox News broadcast a story about how prospectors are looking to cash in on the gold washed loose by the recent devastating floods. The reporter interviewed a couple of guys getting outfitted for panning at Gold-n -Detectors in Golden, then followed them up Highway 6 to prospect on Clear Creek. One of the prospectors was identified as J.J. Long, President of Gold Prospectors of Colorado. Although the reporter misidentified the guy in the program, the segment did close with a screen shot of the real GPOC website. Hey, we ll take the publicity any way we can get it! Below is the article republished from the web, followed by an interesting article from 1894 showing that no matter how much things change, they still remain the same... Interest in Gold Mining Increases after Colorado Floods GOLDEN, Colo. A bit of a gold rush happening right here in Colorado, following the devastating storm that hit the state two weeks ago. This storm of the century is having a very positive effect on panning for gold here in northern Colorado, said J.J. Long, president of Gold Prospectors of Colorado<sic>. All the water has broken loose rock and dirt and banks of creeks and rivers from Bear Creek to the Poudre River. All that shaking of river banks is good for gold miners who like to pan for the precious metal. At the Gold N Detectors shop on Washington in Golden, you can get outfitted for some panning for under $50. A pan, screen, and shovel are really about all you need to get started. But if you want to get expert tips, the Prospectors Club is the way to go. They take trips to streams, have lessons on how to spot gold in black sand, and help get you on your way to becoming, well just maybe, a very wealthy person. There s gold in them thar hill and in this here creek, and we re gonna find it, said Mack Plauk of Montgomery, Alabama. Plauk is spending spare time panning around the metro area. I know there s new gold here because of the flood, that might be the only good thing about this terrible flood, he said. For more information, visit: Posted on: 7:17 pm, September 25, 2013, by Jon Bowman, updated on: 09:29pm, September 25, 2013 at News Article What! Gold right in the very streets of Boulder? Has the flood, which washed so vast an amount of sand and mud down the mountains, proved a blessing in disguise? It is said that successful sluice mining is being done at Woodbury s place on Valley Road, every yard of which has paid well for the work of digging and sluicing. That veracious young man, Sam Woodbury, points to his sluice boxes with pride and exhibits some fine nuggets he declares were taken from the flood deposit in front of his father s house Boulder Camera Fort Collins Courier December 20, 1894

4 Mine Safety and Health Exhibit Heritage Lecture II Date: 07-Nov-2013 Heritage Lecture II: Lost Miner! A Brief History of Mine Safety and Rescue with Jeff Hart The men, if they were alive, might be anywhere. In August of 2010 part of the 121-year-old San Jose gold and copper mine, in the Atacama Desert of Chile, collapsed trapping thirty-three miners underground for sixty-nine days. In order to attempt their rescue, a team of experts from the NASA and the Chilean Navy designed and built three 54- centimetre-wide (1.7ft) and 3.9-metre-long (12.7ft) capsules, dubbed the Fenix (or Phoenix) I, II, and III. These capsules included state of the art features like an oxygen supply, a special lighting system, an escape hatch, a safety harness device, and an audio/video communication system. The pod that eventually reached the men, the Phoenix II, was sent down through a tunnel (2,300ft) to the trapped hardrock miners below. After a harrowing journey of over half an hour, the miners were successfully, and without incident, brought back to the surface and their waiting families by the ingenuity of modern mine rescue technology. Don't miss your chance to hear American Drilling Expert and Team Leader, Jeff Hart, discuss the challenges and rewards of his month long struggle to drill the rescue shaft that saved 33 miners in Chile! This exhibit and lecture will feature the museum s internationally unique Chilean miner rescue pod, in addition to other significant artifacts from our mining collection for you to enjoy. The Chilean Pod is a full scale replica (12.7 feet tall and weighing 1800 lbs) of the Fenix (or Phoenix) II capsule, and has become an iconic symbol of the dramatic 2010 rescue that saved 33 Chilean miners who were trapped 2300 feet underground as the world watched and worried. Reception opens at 6:00 pm and Lecture begins at 7:00 pm! Please RSVP at rsvp@wmmi.org When a mine caves in, the air inside the mine explodes- like a piston- through the tunnels, generating winds so that they plaster a working man to the far wall You have very little time to react. You can t do much. Miguel Fort (Chilean miner)

5 The New Prospector s Dilemma By Mark Ressel To buy or not to buy, that is the question: Whether tis nobler in the body to suffer The aches and pains from hauling hundreds of buckets, Or to take out thy checkbook to purchase a truck full of equipment And by spending end them? When I first became interested in gold prospecting, I started, like most people, with a pan and a shovel. I did a lot of digging and a lot of panning, and found a few tiny specks for my efforts. I went home tired and sore, and had very little to show for it. I quickly determined my problem: I couldn t process enough dirt with just a pan and shovel! I started a daily search of Craigslist and found a used Proline sluice box for sale for $75. When I went to buy it, the seller told me I d need to classify my materials to effectively use the sluice box. A trip to the Roc Doc in Nathrop and another $125 later, I added three classifiers, another gold pan, a couple of plastic scoops, and several glass vials, tweezers, etc. to my kit. I then went to Home Depot and spent $15 or so on a half dozen buckets and headed to Point Bar to dig. After a few trips of picking and shoveling, then classifying and slowly feeding the results through the sluice, I was faced with a new problem: extracting the gold from the concentrates. I had several buckets of concentrates in my garage with no easy way of processing them. Beginning my search again, I found a Blue Bowl on Craiglist. I quickly called the guy selling it, and soon was in possession of a Blue Bowl, three more classifiers, and three more buckets of concentrates this guy was trying to get rid of. I should have gotten a clue that if this guy hadn t used his Blue Book to quickly and easily process his concentrates, it wouldn t be quick and easy for me to use it to process mine! After spending hours and hours over days and days feeding five teaspoons of concentrates every 15 minutes, I found myself in a serious hypnotic state from watching the thing swirl around and around for so long. I had enough gold to very thinly cover the bottom of a glass vial and still had a bucket or two of concentrates to go through. All of this was in my first year prospecting as a hobby. The next year I acquired a used highbanker-dredge combo, a new motor for my combo unit, a spiral panner to process my concentrates, and a good metal detector. Ironically, I still had bucketfuls of concentrates sitting around my garage. All told, I ve spent a good deal of money and acquired a truckful of good equipment to find and extract that yellow gold. I spent as much time as I could up in the mountains hauling and setting up my equipment and processing dirt. I had a serious case of gold fever. Now I ve been involved with this hobby for four years and I m discovering something interesting about myself. Every year I start out early in the spring going back to my sluice box and classifiers. Mainly this is because I start before the opening of the motorized mining season. I don t move as much dirt as I do with my highbanker, but I ve discovered something about myself. I actually enjoy the simplicity! When I use my highbanker, it seems like it takes forever to load everything in my car and then I spend my first hour or so up in the mountains hauling everything to the river and setting it up. When I just use my sluicebox I can throw in my sluicebox, a pick and shovel, my classifiers and a bunch of buckets, and be digging within minutes of arrival on the claim. I sit there enjoying the sound of the water and the birds flying overhead. I focus on the flow through my sluice box, making slight adjustments based on the water flow and the nature of the dirt I m putting through. I take the time to chat with my fellow gold-seekers and show any interested bystander how it all works. And at the end of the day it doesn t really matter too much how much dirt I moved or how much gold I found. I say this to encourage those new to this hobby to take a deep breath and smell the roses. We all would love to find the undiscovered motherload and retire rich. But the answer isn t always in finding another tool or piece of equipment to make the job easier or quicker. Enjoy this pursuit for what it is: a hobby to be enjoyed rather than a chore to be endured.

6 President Ben Big Ben Higley Vice President George Enterman Secretary Tricia Enterman Treasurer Wayne Wittkopp One Year Trustee Paul Harloff Board of Directors Two Year Trustee Dick Margeson Three Year Trustee Howard Divelbiss COMMITTEE CHAIRS Memberships Elise Pearce Raffle Wayne Wittkopp Claims Committee Jason Allen To contact Board Members call or send them an at the addresses above

7 November Meetings November 7 th Board Meeting Gold Hill Police Station 955 Moreno Avenue. CS, CO 7pm November 13 th General Membership Meeting Elks Lodge 3400 N. Nevada Ave. CS, CO 7pm Annual Silent Auction: Bring your unwanted/unneeded items to sell

8 GOLD PROSPECTORS OF COLORADO PO BOX 1593 COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO 80901